Newshoggers Comments
Who's arming the Iraqi "insurgents"?
Stop with the facts already.
Just go with the Fox News guys.
Iran is the new Germany.
Bad is the new good.
Hot is the new cold.
Bush is the new John Wayne. The misunderstood hero with the heart of gold.
My this is good kool aide.
"I don't think the White House are really shifting targets..."
That'd be "is shifting," dummkopf.
"Hersh is correct that the Bush administration have run into resistance."
That'd be has, man! "The Bush administration has run into..."
Geez, good thing I check up on you over here; your posts are bad enough, but the mangling of the language is even worse. Even good old G.W.'s got a better grip on diction than the perplexed newsfloggers over here.
Hersh is a hack, by the way. Those familiar with Hersh's work - he's mounted a decades-long campaign to delegitimize the U.S. military and the use of force - will be rightly skeptical of this article - but you just swallow it right up!
Donald,
A collective noun is a noun that denotes a collection of persons or things regarded as a unit.
Usage Note: In American usage, a collective noun takes a singular verb when it refers to the collection considered as a whole, as in:
The family was united on this question.
The enemy is suing for peace.
It takes a plural verb when it refers to the members of the group considered as individuals, as in:
My family are always fighting among themselves.
The enemy were showing up in groups of three or four to turn in their weapons.
In British usage, however, collective nouns are more often treated as plurals:
The government have not announced a new policy.
The team are playing in the test matches next week.
I'm a BRIT, dumbass. That has already been explained to you once. I'm heartfelt sick of your continued thread-jacking, trying to push your own version of American English down my throat in pursuit of a spurious sense of intellectual superiority. Are you maybe compensating for something?
I'm banning your IP for continued violation of common manners in commenting.
Now, to use some gaelic - pogue ma hone.
-C
*applauds*
Cernig: My whole game was to goad you, it and worked like a charm! You snapped at the meat like a Pavlovian puppy!
You're even worse than Libby - at least she tried, in vain, to deflect my dissections of her anti-Bush propaganda. You tout yourself at some big Iran expert, and when I throw a couple little jabs at you, you run high-tail for the trees. That's wimpy!
Not just that: I'm "hijacking" your threads? What's to hijack? Your traffic's sparse! It's not like all the boys at the Iran desk at State are scrambling off the metro - beating a fast track to their PCs - so they can get their morning fix of Iran updates from the newsfloggers! Don't kid yourself, man!
As for the British usage, dude, you're not too hip! You're writing for an American audience (intentionally or not), and even if you're stationed in Timbuktu, you should at least have the common decency to write intelligibly enough for your primary readers to follow along, and not to mention to prevent them from dismissing you as a raving fool (which would be hard, in any case, I'll concede).
But I do love the Brits! How about a little Cockney twang when you sing:
"We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!"
It's all thought controwwlll over here, eh?
There's nothing here you post - and I mean NOTHING - that I couldn't tear apart - in no time - with a crushing analytical riposte. Libby had enough when I pointed out peer-reviewed, scholarly research rebutting her key points on the nature of the Iranian threats. It's was too much! Cognitive dissonance, I guess? Whatever happened, my remarks were deleted in a freaked-out flip of the delete key. You're about as flabbergasted!
In any case, my IP's banned? Scaredy cat you, no?
I have Halscan as well, and I'll defend my posts to the end (no banned IPs). I only delete racist or anti-Semitic rants, or thereabouts. That's not the case here - and the worst you got was dummkopf, mostly in gest too! Got under your skin, that's for sure. I'll get you a Kleenex (American brand name - in regular linguistic use - for disposible tissue, to help you there on the U.S. vernacular) So, enjoy your Bush-bashing bubble. Banning my IP's not going to keep me from exposing your raving mad diatribes, you and Libby the Nihilist both.
Wow, Donald - psychotic much?
Thanks for admitting your juvenile grammar-police ad-hominems were motivated by a desire to provoke a response, though. You've really shown which of us has the inetllectual and emotional maturity there, right enough.
Regards, C
Now Cernig, you misspelled "intellectual" so I'm going to have to dun you a point. Because nothing matters more than minutiae.
Being as I'm clear over in California I can't make sense of your British spellings, or mistakes either. We Americans sure are dumb, I guess.
Hey whig,
Donald, according to his blog, is an "Associate Professor of Political Science teaching in Long Beach, California."
Maybe it's a CA thing 
If he acts like this in front of his students, he must be the laughing stock of campus.
Regards, C
Douglas, Pink Floyd's lyric / performance has nothing to do with "cockney" in any form.
If you don't understand the language its probably smarter not to try to criticize it.
And, guess what, the net goes around the world where far more people apply English rules of grammar than American...oh and the WWW was invented by an Englishman. Ignorant, arrogant or xenophobic.. you take your choice which world you apply.
This is an outstanding post. It's regrettable that your comments section is troll-plagued. I was hopeful when I saw eleven comments... now, not so much.
One of the most important points you make is that the administration is going to continue using both tracks (nukes and Iraq 'meddling') to pre-justify an attack.
The tepid support that el-Baradei got from the EU for the upcoming round of discussions with Iran to resolve the outstanding questions makes me very uneasy (and made him boycott the first day of recent meetings to express his displeasure).
The ADL's 'No Nuclear Iran' campaign was most visible in the weeks leading up to the opening of the UN General Assembly and Ahmadinejad's visit, but it's longer-term, aimed at getting the UN to take actions including "a freezing of Iranian assets, more robust sanctions, a travel ban on Iran's leaders and an end to bilateral links between Iran and other nations."
There need to be hearings in the Senate to provide an opportunity for pushback on the garbage EFP etc. claims, and continuing repetition of the truth about Iran's nuclear rights and obligations.
Sen. Clinton, the probably Democratic nominee, has been repeating lies for months while claiming that she's merely "supporting stronger diplomatic efforts." That's a serious opportunity for some other candidate to challenge the lies -- but none of the top-tier candidates will do so.
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